y, that he divined by intuition the
heart-anguish of those who have lost theirs. Romeo, when Friar Laurence
tells him that he is banished from Verona, cries:--

"Ha! banishment? Be merciful; say _death_!
For exile hath more terror in his look;
Much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'

_Friar._--Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

_Romeo._--There is no world outside Verona's walls!
Hast thou no poison mixed
To kill me? but 'banished!' 'banished!'
O Friar! the damned use that word in hell!"

He who spoke thus was Shakespeare, and yet _his_ compatriots could not
find the means of erecting a statue to him! Even at the present day in
London, where you may find in every square a herd of dukes, to whom not
even bronze can give celebrity, Shakespeare is nowhere to be found. His
image remains shut up in Westminster Abbey, instead of being set upon a
column whose height should dominate over the metropolis, as his genius
dominates over the world.[F]

I must necessarily pass over much that is interesting in the life of
Handel: recollect I have undertaken to give you only a "sketch," not a
history. My sketch, however, would be incomplete did I overlook his
greatest production, or his visit to "that generous and polite nation,"
as he was pleased to call Ireland, for which nation his masterpiece was
composed, and in which it was first performed.

For a long time Handel had been wished for in Ireland. The Duke of
Devonshire, the Lord Lieutenant of the country at that period, had
directly invited him to pay a visit to the island, and the Irish
professed great admiration for him.

Almost all the musical societies of Dublin, which were composed of
amateurs, gave their entertainments for the furtherance of charitable
objects. Handel put himself into communication with the most important
of these, that "for the benefit and enlargement (freedom) of poor
distressed prisoners for debt," and promised to give an oratorio for its
benefit. For this society he composed the "Messiah," the masterpiece of
this great master. Whoever has listened to his music will admit that its
most distinctive character is the sublime. No one, without exception,
neither Beethoven nor Mozart, has ever risen nearer to the grandeur of
the ideal than Handel did, and he was never more sublime than in the
"Messiah;" and, remembering this, read the dates which are inscribed
with his own hand upon the manuscript:--

"C